(In 1500 Leonardo da Vinci invented flippers for divers, so this is not a new idea).The key to making sense of all these tales comes through the story of a Dutch seaman called Hamel.He was on a Dutch ship, ‘Sperwer’ that was wrecked near the Korean island of Cheju in 1653.Where he and the other survivors of the wreck spent ten months on the island.

As did John Smith, who became the Governor of the Virginia Colony in the early 17th century.

The ancient Greeks called mermaids ‘sea nymphs’ or ‘nereids’ and describe them as simply nude women who swam in the sea, similar to a reported sighing in the 19th century.

On September 8 1809 and school master in England wrote to “The Times” stating that twelve years previous he was on the shore of Sandside Bay when he saw a naked woman sitting on a rock.

The problem with this explanation is that most mermaid stories come from Europe, spread by local fishermen who don’t spend months or years at sea. In Ireland they are called Merrows or Murirruhgachs, in Cornwall, Merrymaids, in the Shetland islands, Sea-trows, while the Germans on the Rhine called them Meerfraus.

The Scandanavians called them Navmands and the Russians, Rusalkas. Perhaps we need to look at the mermaid story from a different perspective.

he official explanation of the mermaid myth goes like this: Sailors see manatees, walruses or seals, and mistake them for women with a fish’s tail.